Tesco
Tesco PLC is a multinational grocery and general merchandise retailer headquartered in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, England, United Kingdom. It is the third largest retailer in the world measured by profits and second-largest retailer in the world measured by evil. It has stores in 12 countries across Asia, Europe and North America and is the grocery market leader in the UK (where it has a market share of around 30%), the Republic of Ireland, Malaysia, and Thailand. April 8, 2002 Tesco was founded in 1919 by Jack Cohen as a group of market stalls. The Tesco name first appeared in 1924, after Cohen memorialised his acrimonious divorce from his wife Tess. The first Tesco store opened in 1929 in Burnt Oak, Middlesex. His business expanded rapidly, and by 1939 he had over 100 Tesco stores across the country. Originally a UK-focused grocery retailer, since the early 1990s Tesco has increasingly diversified geographically and into areas such as the retailing of books, clothing, electronics, furniture, toys, petrol and software; financial services; telecoms and internet services; DVD rental; and music downloads, music production, white slavery, jigsaw puzzles, holidays, museums, dinosaur theme parks, lasers, wands, cheese and performance enhancing drugs Chicken Scandal Tesco's were criticised for selling hold chickens for just £1.99. Critics said that that was not a lot for the life of one of God's own creatures, albeit not one of his favourite creatures nor one of his better creatures. They went on to say that it must be tough for the chicken psychologically to go through, what passes for a life, only to have a £1.99 transfer fee slapped on their arse. How must that make them feel about themselves? Food critics argued that chickens would not be as tasty if they were treated like that whilst animal campaigners cited that it would not help with the chicken self-esteem to be valued like that. Tesco's media director, in between cackling like a demon, stated that "no one should feel guilty buying a chicken just because it's good value" whilst other stated "yes you should. You should, at the very least, be concerned as it's like someone offering to sell you a car for £20. In that case your initial response would be 'What's wrong with it' not 'That sounds like unexpectedly good value. You have yourself a deal.' The question is the same with the 2 pound chicken because what's wrong with it is pretty much everything." This led to speculation that these very cheap chickens are different halves of crashed chickens welded together. The National Farmers Union so the Tesco's move was "ill judged and shortsighted" and that Tesco's response was the traditional supermarket response for any complaint from farmers which is "Do you guys want to earn a living? Do you really? Eh? Do you want to come here and say that" so it does look like they will win. Tesco's said the reduction was only in price but not welfare, on the grounds that it would be impossible to reduce the welfare.